Three arrested in UK horse meat probe

Three men have been arrested by officers investigating Britain's horse meat scandal.

The men were arrested at plants in West Yorkshire that were inspected on Tuesday by the Food Standards Agency.

A police spokesman said: "Dyfed-Powys Police have today made arrests at both meat plants inspected by the Food Standards Agency on Tuesday.

"At Farmbox Meats near Aberystwyth, Dyfed-Powys Police have arrested two men aged 64 years and 42 years, and in a simultaneous operation police arrested a man aged 63 at the Peter Boddy Slaughterhouse in Todmorden, West Yorkshire.

"Approvals for both operations were suspended yesterday by the FSA so neither firm was operational.

"Dyfed Powys Police can confirm the three people have been arrested on suspicion of offences under the Fraud Act and they are being detained at Aberystwyth Police Station where they will be interviewed jointly by Police and FSA staff in what has this afternoon become a joint operation."

The two plants became the first UK suppliers suspected of passing off horse meat for beef.

Production at both plants was suspended pending the outcome of investigations into claims they supplied and used horse carcasses in meat products purporting to be beef for burgers and kebabs.

The FSA said on Tuesday it had "detained" all meat found at the premises and seized paperwork and customer lists from the two companies.

The arrests came as it emerged a significant amount of horse meat containing the painkiller phenylbutazone - or "bute" - could have been entering the food chain for some time.

Authorities in Britain and France are trying to trace the carcasses of six horses contaminated with bute - which were slaughtered in a UK abattoir and may have entered the human food chain across the Channel.

The drug, which is potentially harmful to human health, was detected in eight horses out of 206 tested by the FSA in the first week of this month.

Two were intercepted and destroyed before leaving the slaughterhouse but the other six were sent to France, where horse meat is commonly eaten.

FSA chief executive Catherine Brown said the agency increased testing of horse carcasses over a three-month period last year after intelligence from abattoirs suggested bute was getting into the food chain.

Of 63 tested - amounting to five per cent of all carcasses - four (six per cent) tested positive for the painkiller, prompting the FSA to start testing 100 per cent of horse meat in January, which revealed the eight contaminated carcasses.

Brown said: "That would say there has been a significant amount of carcasses with bute going into the food chain for some time."

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